This series is in partnership with Ambient House Productions, a Rochester based full service video production company specializing in high quality corporate, commercial, & promotional videos.

In a series talking about coworking spaces in Rochester, it would be remiss to not mention the original coworking facility in Rochester, Cube.

Cube validated the concept of coworking in Rochester and was groundbreaking for the coworking and incubator facilities that exist here today. Five years ago, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Rochester was fragmented, explained Erik Giberti, local SmugMug photographer, web developer, and Cube co-founder. He and other freelancers in town were searching for a spot where they could work outside of their homes and achieve better work/life balance.

Giberti explained how entrepreneur and current Narrative owner David Hewitt found this one car garage behind The Running Room. The pair set up the very first coworking facility in Rochester in the space in May 2012. For the first time, Cube brought a collection of the Rochester entrepreneurial community under one roof and “led to a variety of networking opportunities, which is valuable anywhere, but especially in Rochester because it’s such a close-knit community,” said Nate Nordstrom, Founder of BrandHoot.

Cube operated out of the garage space for seven months- with no bathroom- before moving into its final location on South Broadway. When the doors of Cube finally closed in August 2016, it truly left behind a legacy and fueled the growth and development of several Rochester startups. Cube provided a springboard for the city’s entrepreneurs before anything else like it ever existed here.

“[Cube] was incredibly valuable to have both a place for our team to exist and a community to be a part of from the beginning,” said Chris Lukenbill, Founder of Able.